Welcome To the World of Steel Guitar

A Brief History

The steel guitar concept made its way from Hawaii to the mainland USA in the mid 1890’s. At that time it was nothing more than a six-string standard guitar with a raised nut, tuned to a chord (triad) and played with a folded pocket knife or other device that basically acted as a “moveable nut”.

As it evolved, there came the resonator guitar or Dobro (manufactured by the Dopyera brothers), with a cone that produced a louder volume in order to be heard when played in a group or combo. Still a six-string instrument, it was commonly tuned to the Dobro or “G” tuning…a straight G triad.

As electric instruments came into play, the steel guitar followed, and was perhaps truly “born” at this time - the late 1930’s. Jerry Byrd was an early steel guitar virtuoso, who invented the C6 tuning. From there, different tunings became common, and two, three, and four-necked solid-body steel guitars with electronic pickups were becoming accepted into the mainstream. Also at this time, Western Swing music was very popular and Bob Wills always featured a steel guitar in his band, as did other bandleaders of the day.

In the early 1950’s, Bud Isaacs was the first person to use pedals on a recording that did anything more than change the tuning. At this point, pedals and the sound they made when changing the pitch of certain strings, became integrated into the actual playing and sound of the instrument. It was not long before great minds such as Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Walter Haynes and Lloyd Green had figured out ways to split the pulls and isolate them so that every string could be lowered or raised in pitch in order to accomplish almost any configuration of raises and lowers. By this time knee levers were also coming into vogue.

The modern pedal steel that we play today has been fairly static in basic design and capability since the mid 1960’s to about 1970. Few engineering leaps or truly new sweeping changes have developed since then. However, there still exists a wide variety of set-ups in knee lever and pedal configurations from player to player. The most common pedal setup is either the “Emmons” or “Day. Both accomplish exactly the same things, but the placement of the pedals are different. Also today, most modern pedal steels are what is referred to as the “all-pull” design. This is a technical point that simply means the strings are raise or lowered by the same basic movement, a rod pulling a changer finger or scissor. The Emmons guitar company pioneered the “push-pull” design in 1963. Unlike the all-pull, the push-pull pulls the strings to raise the pitch, but pushes to lower the pitch. Many of these Emmons guitars from the ‘60’s through the ‘80’s remain in circulation today and are still very popular among many steel players.

Typically, the modern pedal steel is found in three basic varieties:

1) The single ten (S-10) E9^th tuning (a single-neck guitar with at least 3 pedals and at least two knee levers);

2) The double ten (D-10); featuring a C6 tuning utilizing 5 pedals in addition to the standard E9.

3) The single 12 (S-12); a twelve string variety that tries to blend some elements of the 9^th tuning and some of the 6^th tuning together into an integrated “universal” tuning, with arguable and various degrees of success. There also exists the S-12 “extended E9^th” tuning as well.

Of course, various amps and gadgetry now exist to “help” the steel guitarist get “that” tone, whatever it may be. It seems to be a constant struggle to find that elusive tone for some folks who play the steel. It is my opinion that great tone takes several things in varying amounts:

1) Right and left technique.

2) A good quality steel guitar.

3) A good amplifier designed and voiced for the steel guitar.

4) High quality accessories such as picks, bar, strings, cords and a good volume or expression pedal.

Given the above items, the only things lacking in the quest to learn and play this most expressive and beautiful instrument is dedication and desire on the part of the student.